Carson Haines

Dr. Sindelar

ENC 3250: Professional Communications

7 December 2023

Reflection Essay

After taking this course, I believe that my writing has improved. When we completed

writing assignments, we needed to have at least two peer reviews. In the majority of my old Shot

two:classes, we only got one peer review and sometimes they were not beneficial. I enjoyed

getting feedback from multiple students; this helped me recognize common mistakes in my

writing and allowed me to work towards a new goal when writing future papers. One example is

from our White Paper, and this paper was certainly our longest one and by far the most in-depth.

I liked that we needed to fill out a peer review form to submit to one another because it required

us to step out of our comfort zone and cover all the key topics in writing. When two of my fellow

peers reviewed my White Paper, it was apparent that there were similar mistakes I had made in

my paper based on what they wrote on the peer review form. This was very helpful and benefited

my writing.

When entering Professional Communications, I did not know what I was getting myself

into. My main goal was to learn new things and apply them into my personal life; one

assignment in particular made this goal come true. The Engagement Project was a very difficult

assignment, and it had numerous steps that needed to be executed properly in order to complete

it. After learning how to use KIRI Engine, I was able to correctly scan 3-dimensional objects. As

an advertising major, it is very important to know how to scan and export objects for
advertisements and videos. This software and learning how to use it correctly really helped me

complete my goal of applying classwork into my day-to-day life. The Engagement Project as a

whole was very interesting and I thoroughly enjoyed doing it.

The assignment I am most proud of is the Instructions Packet. I had a lot of fun

completing this assignment and ended up getting a good grade for it as well. This assignment,

unlike the rest, was certainly the most creative. Rather than referring to our Reaktion Book topic,

we were able to choose anything and explain how to create it. Making slime is something I

hadn’t done in years and the thought came to me out of nowhere. I am glad I chose it as my topic

because the overall outcome of the slime was very successful. Other students seemed engaged in

my instruction manual, and I am proud of it. Rather than adding another assignment to this

course, I would change the criteria of some of them. I believe that choosing a Reaktion Book

topic (and paying for the book) was not necessary for this course. I think it would be beneficial

for students to chose more diverse topics (that are different per assignment), rather than using the

same one that was chose during week one. That being said, if I could change anything, I would

make assignment topics broader, allowing the students to branch out in their creativity instead of

sticking to the same one all semester (for example, the White Paper).